He had to fight the urge to just get up and run through. He forced himself to wait. No way he was risking getting caught by those heavy guns. The gelskin might not hold up.
He crouched, careful not to move. His breathing seemed to echo in his ears and he took a deep breath to get it under control. Everything was silent now. He crept forward, keeping low and quiet.
The Sentinels were still trained on the door, their gun barrels still smoking. He crept carefully through, trying to go skinny so he didn’t touch anything. They’d catch even the slightest movement, he knew. He got through the door and held in his sigh of relief. Now he was on the roof.
Moving in a slow strafe, he kept his gun arm trained on the Sentinels, not that it would do much good up this close. He stuck to the edge of the roof. A thin semi-translucent membrane surrounded the roof edge. Without one it would be impossible to build this high. The wind would sweep you screaming into the endless sky.
It felt perfectly warm inside the protective coating. He wondered how well the membrane would stand up to gun fire? It looked tissue thin, but looks could be deceiving. Then again, it might just rip open with the first shot and the freezing wind would punch through, smash him like a spider and fling his corpse into the night.
He kept moving. Best to get around behind them and then get to the portal. Only problem is, he didn’t know where Venadrik had gone.
He flashed Sakura. “Need help. Got here too late. Don’t know where he went.”
No answer. Fuck. He could be at a goddamn dead end here. He kept moving anyway, as slowly and carefully as he could. The Sentinels scanned with mechanical precision, looking for anything on the roof, hunting him. One wrong move and they’d shred him.
“Sakura?”
An address and a private Tangleport code appeared on his innervision.
“Sakura?”
“Remember—when—I said I was fine? Kind of lied about that.”
Hoskin pulled up the mites on his innervision. They showed bright red everywhere.
“I’m coming back for you right now—”
“I never expected—I’m sorry. I never expected you out there. Wish I had the courage earlier to stop all—I. One more thing—”
Silence.
“You there?” he flashed.
Still silence.
“Sakura?”
She was gone.
Just then he saw the Sentinels focus back on the door and heard shouting.
Not now.
A second later someone appeared in the doorway and the Sentinels pulverized him. More rioters started pouring through, one after the other, tripping over each other, climbing over the bodies as they went down.
Hoskin broke into a run. Too many coming through. The Sentinels were going to hit the membrane. He blinked the address and code at the Tangleport and jumped. A terrifying hiss erupted. He felt a vicious pull, like some massive riptide yanking him backwards, but he was through. He turned at the last second and saw several people crushed utterly flat and sucked through a hole the size of a fist, before they disappeared and he was hurtling through the Tangle.
***
Hoskin stepped out of the port at the other end of the Tangle and found himself in a ferroconcrete-lined tunnel that curved off to the left. Mold and spidery strings of lichen ate away at the stone. Light seeped in from around the corner.
Hoskin checked the portal address on the roof. It didn’t respond. This was a one way ticket. When the membrane ripped, the pressure would have taken out the people, the portal and the Sentinels too.
He signaled his arm and it ripped apart and reformed as a heavy assault rifle. Anything could be waiting for him. He didn’t hear any people. He let loose a cloud of mites and they poured around the corner. They saw nothing but a string of glowglobes hovering near the roof of the long empty tunnel. It was hot and muggy. He wasn’t sure whether he was up high or down low. He inched carefully around the corner and saw gnarled robotic sentries scanning the humid tunnel. They couldn’t see him. Hoskin took a deep breath.
Suddenly firing echoed down the tunnel. Apparently they had no problem hearing him. He dropped into cover. The superheated plasma crushed the wall to his left, the concrete shattering in a burst of dust and grime.
Hoskin loaded smart ammo again and fired from cover. The ammo curved around the corner, bending, diving and dipping to avoid the sentries’ fire, driven by tiny distributed intelligence routines burned into their cells. Their rounds bit into sentries, burrowing and bursting, tearing them apart.
The tunnel went quiet.
Hoskin stepped around the corner again. Nothing now. He moved slowly at first in the low-lit passage. It was featureless and dank, stinking of mildew, filled with a hard dust. The tunnel curved and dipped and curved again. For five minutes Hoskin inched along, assault arm extended, senses hyper-awake. But when nothing more attacked him, he moved more swiftly, jogging, his feet echoing. The lack of weapons told him he wasn’t supposed to get this far. There was nothing else. Just him and Venadrik, somewhere at the end.
He picked up the pace. Minutes later, when he heard wind and his feet crunched some scattered trash, he realized he’d finally come to the end of the long escape route. The tunnel rose up, leading to the surface. He couldn’t see outside yet, but he slowed his pace and moved up the gradual then suddenly steep incline. It opened up into what looked like an organic factory complex.
There were curved buildings and low walls everywhere, the buildings breathing heavily. He stepped out of the yawning mouth of the tunnel and looked around.
In the distance he heard sirens. He looked off to his right and saw they were at the edge of the city, just outside the Edgelands Ghettos. A map pulled up on his eyes. It used to be a medical autofactory, filled with massive industrial synths, but the write-up said it hadn’t been open in two decades.
He thought about it for a minute. It looked like as good a place as any for a hide out. Or a black clinic. He pulled up the ones that Azusa had found and saw it was listed as an underground clinic that caught fire not long ago, killing everyone in it. There hadn’t been much of an investigation. Just a few more dead criminals. The city had more important things to spend credits on.
It made sense. Venadrik would have killed off anyone who knew about him, even if they were discreet. Best not to leave a witness.
Hoskin moved carefully. Could be more Venadriks hiding anywhere. Or this could be the last one. The original.
Nobody would suspect this place. It had been abandoned a long time.
Hoskin scanned the area slowly, dropping to one knee. Nothing moved but the wind. There were at least twenty buildings here. Venadrik could be in any of them.
And there would have to be traps.
He fired off a tiny storm of mites that streaked out into the night, streaming images back to him. Could Venadrik have already bounced to another place?
No. He’s still here.
The mites returned nothing. Hoskin got up and moved slowly out into the opening at the center of the complex, his vision tuned to the night. He could hear sirens in the distance. His heart thundered in his head. The wind whispered.
There were a hundred places to hide: a cluster of three buildings to his right; a large, angular building on his left; a long, squat one further out. He’d have to go building to building. Venadrik could be anywhere.
Hoskin knelt down and scanned the ground. Nothing spoke to him, nothing gave him a clue. Precious minutes passed. He wasn’t really expecting footprints. Venadrik was too cautious to make a mistake. Except Venadrik was cornered now.
Or maybe I am?
He picked a direction and moved. He flashed the mites to go building to building, to save time. They broke free from their cloud and sprayed off in all directions. He waited, watching their feeds. Almost immediately they started dying off as they hit invisible pulses that fried their insides.
Not all the buildings were defended. Some were
empty, the mites slipping in easily. Could be more hollusions, but he doubted it, not with no defenses. At least they were narrowing it down.
He had a strong feeling about the large, angular building, so he started there. The complex felt murderous, marauding, like the buildings could reach out and grab him. It pressed in on him. He rezzed up his eyes and amped his ears. Everything stood out with superhuman clarity. The tiniest sounds resounded in his ears: the buildings’ heavy breathing; sirens screaming; the wind.
A fast-moving drone rushed by overhead, spraying light into the complex. He couldn’t ID it. Wasn’t a cop. Maybe Childress or CII? Had they hacked his brain or tagged him with a tracker when they put him under? They’d redone his heart without asking, so anything was possible. It didn’t matter now. The fast-mover’s light stabbed into the factory, illuminating everything for a flickering moment. Then it went dark again and his eyes adjusted.
Hoskin came to the building and squatted down. The mites had finished mapping the complex. Only five buildings were defended. And the one right in front of him was one of them. Hoskin looked down his sight, sweeping the area.
Suddenly a buzzing hit his ears. Something swarmed around him, invisible, getting louder, like a cloud of screeching bats.
Hoskin came alive, his nerves on fire, and he scrambled up. The explosions went off, tiny invisible bombs, bursting like fireworks all around his head, disorienting him. He ran for cover, feet slipping, as the storm of explosions ripped the air, the gelskin taking the impact. Still the concussive waves caught him and he staggered, tossed like a feather in a windstorm. Like the black birds from his dream, a never ending wave of invisible monsters assaulted him, swarming, hammering, screaming. His innervision warned him that his holostealth had shorted.
Hoskin slashed at them as they poured in from every direction. He hacked desperately at them. Boom. Boom. Boom. A giant’s footsteps pounding the ground.
And then the blasts went suddenly silent.
Everything was fuzzy. Hoskin didn’t know what he was doing, whether he was standing or on his back, falling or getting up.
He saw a blurry shape not far off, something mirrored, flickering. Hoskin moved on pure instinct now, falling backwards, firing.
A flash of bright white light, like a sheet of sun. Blown back. Everything hazy and spinning and wild. An explosion, right next to his head, but strangely soundless. He could see the white light start as a small pinprick and then expand crazily, all of it too fast, even though it felt like slow motion. He was on his back, he realized.
There! Something mirrored was moving and he fired, the bullets finding their own away, whistling through the hot air.
Venadrik.
Hoskin scrambled to his feet and tried for the cover of one of the empty buildings, but the mirror-colored thing crashed on top of him, stabbing and slashing. Something hot and searing slipped into him and Hoskin almost blacked out for a moment. A memory flashed through him in an instant: his grandfather teaching him to kill catfish; a tiny spot on its head, just covered with skin, no bone or muscle and you just slipped something in.
Hoskin came back to himself suddenly. He whirled and fired. A scream and the air bled. A buzzing fission knife dropped from an invisible hand and bounced away.
Nothing now but a feeling of fullness—of congestion. His mind shut down. He could only feel. He was conscious of motion.
The air tackled him. A hand clawed his face, hot and searing, going for his eyes, but his gelskin held, the fingers unable to dig into the soft white and burn. Hoskin smashed his assault arm against the invisible hand and Venadrik cried out.
And just as quick as it had gone, Hoskin’s mind and senses flooded back to him, as if crashing down from the sky. He needed to short Venadrik’s holostealth.
He rolled on top of the writhing, invisible body. He smashed down again and again. The body bucked and threw him, but the holostealth shorted and Hoskin could see the outlines of Venadrik moving fast, too fast, driven by what could only be combat implants.
Hoskin raised his arm and fired. He hit him. He knew it. The bullets tore in and tore out and the outlines of Venadrik staggered but kept coming.
Venadrik leapt high in the air and landed on Hoskin, the weight driving the two men to the ground. Venadrik buzzed open another knife, its searing energy alive and furious. Venadrik held Hoskin with his knees, raised the knife high and brought it crashing down with a grunt. It missed Hoskins’s eye by a fraction and drove deep into his cheek and the side of his nose, burning up bone, muscle and nerve.
The incredible pain jolted Hoskin’s nervous system to a new level, just before his backbrain shut the pain down and unleashed a cloud of mites to the wound.
And that’s when he knew Venadrik had taken his chance and missed. Now the will of the fight favored Hoskin.
Venadrik yanked the knife free and raised it again, but Hoskin reared up. Venadrik flew back and landed hard on the ground and Hoskin was on him, hammering down relentlessly in an animal frenzy, the bright blood spurring him on. He tore and slashed. Venadrik’s holostealth shorted completely and for a second Hoskin saw through his white hot haze, saw the pulp of a man beneath him.
Hoskin woke as if from a dream, not knowing how much time had passed, his innervision filled with angry red alerts about his injuries. Half his face felt numb where his backbrain had cut off the pain impulses and he knew it wasn’t good. He couldn’t see out of one eye.
He stood up, and looked down at Venadrik.
Me?
Hoskin coughed, spraying blood. Venadrik was somehow smiling, his face ruined, one eye totally smashed, his nose crushed to dust.
“My love,” Venadrik whispered. “You killed me.”
“You did that yourself.”
“I could have been more like you, I think. If things had been different.”
“And yet this is what you chose,” said Hoskin, sweeping his hand toward the city.
“They did it to themselves. I just pushed. People do what they always do because they’re ugly and stupid and violent.”
“Sometimes. But there’s stuff worth saving, even if you can’t see it.”
“People are all the same. Just turn off the lights and they panic. Take away their food and they turn on each other.”
“You took their choices.”
“No. They made the ones they always make. Because that’s how all people are.”
“Not all of them.”
“No. Not you. Their noble protector. They don’t deserve it, you know.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Hoskin just looked down on him in sadness, thinking of Sakura.
“It’s too late now,” said Venadrik. “The animals will tear themselves apart.”
“You’re wrong. You failed because you’re everything you hate in people. The best of you died with her. I’ll stop it. And the city will go on.”
Getting Answers
Hoskin ignored the screaming red alerts about his injuries. He doubted there was a hospital in the city that wasn’t overwhelmed. He’d need help sooner than that. He flooded his system with every mite he had left and set them on emergency.
Hoskin flipped Venadrik’s body over and scanned his neck. No blackbox. Didn’t matter. No way to crack it fast anyway.
He scanned the buildings. The biggest one drew his eyes. It had a dark red energy door. The building’s twisted spikes reached for the sky. He limped towards it. His whole body felt sore and inflamed even with his pain receptors knocked out.
Just keep me alive long enough to stop all this. That’s all I need.
He looked at the energy door’s seething red power. Cracking it would take time he didn’t have. He set his gun to the heaviest explosive rounds he had. He unloaded on the building wall. The rounds burst and ripped out a huge chunk of the wall. He kept firing until it was big enough to get through. He hoped the explosions wouldn’t draw any drones. But the whole city was still on fire. Th
ey didn’t care about some abandoned ruin.
He stepped inside the hole, his gun arm raised. The lights came on low, flickering. It was hard to keep his head up but he scanned carefully. Nothing came at him. Venadrik probably never expected anyone to get this far.
He felt lightheaded for a second and almost stumbled, but caught himself. There were answers in here. His whole body was screaming with agreement. There were answers and he’d find them.
He let his gun arm drop. The building was one large room, filled with equipment: synths; arrays in big clusters; a virtual work desk; smart-masks of faces; makeup; streaming and recording equipment; weapons scattered on tables; assault rifles and knives and stacks of hardcopy everywhere. And mirrors, so many mirrors.
Hundreds of living paintings, big and small, covered the walls, the paint moving and shifting. There were intense close-ups of dead eyes staring; slaughtered animals, their faces twisted in fear; bodies broken and hacked apart in the dust; shimmering scorpions stalking victims through dark blades of grass.
He was having trouble seeing clearly now, but rows and rows of tiny painted dolls caught his eyes. Their heads were large and their eyes were piercing and filled with color and soft light. As Hoskin looked at them, their eyes moved. He brought his gun arm up quick. The little dolls cowered, throwing up their hands over their faces and whimpering. He let his arm drop heavily. They were just children’s toys with basic animations.
Someone had painted the dolls with elaborate colors. They wore intricate dresses of lace and pulled cotton and silk. Their hair was done up perfectly.
There were tiny pictures of sketched dresses hanging up everywhere. He saw a work table near the dolls with a number of the half-finished creations. On the table was another matryoshka doll, painted with jeweled scorpions and skulls, glittering with soft flecks of light.
He wobbled, almost going down. An intense heat radiated through his body. He was running out of time.
The Scorpion Game Page 32
